Super Minior Galaxy (Alola!)

Target: Minior
Difficulty: Complex
Medium: Colored Pencils

Proof:

Spoiler

 

Your's is the earliest so I'll claim it!

 

Hi! You have what, on the surface, at least looks like a very fun drawing and adaptation for the for popular Mario franchise. After all minior is a colorful space rock that dashes through the night skies, right? Anyway, let's move on to you your work!

Technique:

I see that you took some time with a large variety of colors in colored pencil. I see that everything is filled in thickly with no white spots or transparency. Wow! That must have taken some patience! However there is a downside to this as well as it will now be a bit more difficult to erase if there are any mistakes. That being said, I do believe that this drawing does have some room for improvement.

Your color choices are bright and they pop off the page and certainly are in contrast to the deep blue of the space. The minior cores are especially eye catching because you've managed to capture their glow. Rosalina's dress and blonde hair also stands out among the dark. I'm kind of wishing that the background was a bit darker because space is super dark. Right now it looks like it is at dusk when the emptiness of space is pitch black. I would also like to see maybe some stars off in the distance, perhaps some gas clouds. If you google any image of space, you'll see these beautiful and colorful clouds emerge behind a be-speckled background and I think that will help you with your drawing and potentially could help your figure stand out even more. Right now your background is a bit bland and is competing with your subjects.

As shown by minior and the castle off in the distance, it is clear to me that your are familiar with shading. Often in space the lighting is more sparse than back down on earth because, well, the light sources are usually off at a great distance. Objects, if they are lit by a nearby star (or really any light source) tend to be a pit harsly lit. Have you seen images of the earth from space? The shadows that envelop the earth are super rigid. However, with that you have provided me, harsh lighting would ruin the mood so you've opted for a softer, friendlier lighting.

However, the shading in the image all but disappears on Rosalina. While there is some indication of darker values, like in her hair and dress, I do believe you can push the shading a bit more as she does look unfinished. I don't see really any indication of shading on her arms, either, which disappoints a little. Since both Rosalina and her castle are at odd angles, the shading might be complicated, but I think you can work it out!

Anatomy of Rosalina

I'll spend a few paragraphs to talk about how you have drawn your human as well, as I see you have made some simplifications to her form that works well and not so well for this rank. Since Rosalina isn't the main subject of the page, I'll try to keep this section short. The first major issue I have is her overall cartoonishness and lack of finish compared to the other subjects. Your castle in the background has more detail than her. Humans are incredibly complicated and when the Nintendo makes strange artistic choices for anatomy in the Mario franchise, leaves one at a dilemma. Are you keeping with the rest of the official, silly , cartoon style or are you going for a more realistic, anatomically correct version of Rosalina? In your drawing I can see you are a bit torn. You drew here accurately enough to be a proportional human being but details like her hands make me think otherwise. Her body is also really elongated in a stylistic way (unless that's her dress swaying in space wind). You've forgotten to include five fingers on her hands and attempted to draw her dress, but drew her eyes super large like in the official, cartoonish art. Overall, what you have started with Rosalina is good, but I do think she does need a bit more working on.

Other things:

Bringing cartoon cartoons to life by nature is rather difficult because at the complex level and above, simply colored forms start are not acceptable. I do like the detailing on the castle and the attempt at atmospheric perspective with the second, orange minior off in the distance, but I am a bit confused on the stream of energy flowing behind minior. I'm guessing that is a symbolic representation of like a tailwind a jet leaves behind? It would be even cooler if that were like sparkles. Right now it feels heavy like steel rope. I think if you didn't have quite so harsh of a line then it would be better? Right now I think it is collapsing the space between the red minior and the the castle (or is that ray of light coming from behind it? It isn't clear.) I like that you have another one of those light beams going off of the page as it does add interest to your drawing. It makes it seem a bit more alive rather than just having the only two miniors in the foreground. I'm even wondering if you could have some that are wayyy small in the background shooting across the sky. At least the orange minior works in the background, but certainly the bacground above it needs to be addressed.

I'm also a bit confused on Rosalina's place on in the contest of the drawing. You placed Rosalina clearly in the corner with a whimsical, happy posture, her hands flinging up in the air, but is she floating in the void of space or is she standing on a space rock? I would definitely like to know as you have provided really no context for me to judge. I'm guessing since it is based off of Super Mario Galaxy and in that game planets are the size of city blocks, so I'm guessing she is standing on one.

Conclusion:
I think what you have is fun and whimsical, but since Minior is complex and you left me with a drawing with little contrast and huge areas of blank color, I'm going to have to say you don't catch it quite yet. I do, however, think you can work on Rosalina more, push the background back, perhaps put in some more spacey stuff or other miniors flying around, and increase your contrast, then I would definitely be happy to reconsider. Drawing this thickly with colored pencil has its benefits, and you have clearly demonstrated that you invested a lot of time, but I think with some more tweaking I'll definitely like to regrade! 58/65

 

@juliorain

For reference, Rosalina and Luma have just used a Launch Star and are flying through space. The two beams of light are the trails left in their wake:

 

@juliorain, I forgot to ask: Do I get the Alola bonus?

 

@Elrond 2.0 yes if you can get more than 1/month!

 

Thanks! Claiming my 5k.

 

@juliorain

I made some updates! Would you please take another look?

 

Much better!!!! I see that you improved it vastly and I'm surprised that you could work over that thick layer of colored graphite! I think you should feel the difference, too as you do get the feeling of being out in space with things resting in the background like they should. With the added contrast of the background, your minior characters seem to glow even more. I see that you've warmed up the lighting which is an interesting choice and it works.

I'm comfortable awarding your effort now with a minior! 65/65! Minior caught!